{"id":73462,"date":"2025-07-18T19:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T19:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73462\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T19:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T19:41:10","slug":"australias-abrams-tanks-reach-ukraine-after-nine-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73462\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s Abrams tanks reach Ukraine after nine months"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first of Australia’s retired M1A1 Abrams tanks have arrived in Ukraine, nine months after they were gifted to aid the country’s war effort.<\/p>\n

Defence Minister Richard Marles said the tanks, first promised last October,<\/a> would “make a significant contribution” to Ukraine’s “ongoing fight against Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion”.<\/p>\n

More than half of the 49 promised tanks have now reached the Ukrainian army, according to a statement from Mr Marles, with the remainder expected “in the coming months”.<\/p>\n

The lengthy delay was blown out by the need to gain Washington’s approval to send the US-made tanks to a third country, and what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described earlier this year as “logistics challenges”.<\/p>\n

US officials question use of Australia’s retired tanks as vehicles go to Ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n

American officials remain privately frustrated over Australia’s decision to donate retired Abrams tanks to Ukraine, even as the vehicles finally begin the long sea journey to the battleground.<\/p>\n

In May, when the ships were first being loaded, a US official told the ABC of American frustration<\/a> about the “complicated” undertaking to send tanks that the Ukrainians would find “difficult to sustain” once in their possession.<\/p>\n

An Australian official told the ABC in April<\/a> there was “doubt if the Ukrainians actually want these vehicles”, which had never seen combat and were being replaced, and which could be vulnerable to drones given their weak roofs.<\/p>\n

But the tanks were requested by Ukraine, and the gift has been welcomed publicly by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko.<\/p>\n

“These modified M1A1 Abrams tanks will deliver more firepower and more mobility to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said.<\/p>\n

“They meet a direct request from the Ukrainian government and form part of Australia’s unwavering commitment to protect the global rules-based order.”<\/p>\n

The 49 tanks come from a fleet of 59 originally purchased in 2007. They are being replaced by the M1A2 model.<\/p>\n

They are valued at $245 million, part of a total of $1.5 billion in Australian assistance to Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first of Australia’s retired M1A1 Abrams tanks have arrived in Ukraine, nine months after they were gifted…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":73463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,2142,50,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-73462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-federal-government","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114875943186913997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}